Who Needs More CVC Word Games?

I love seeing things click for kids when they are learning CVC words. I love to watch them segmenting and blending words until they get them. I love seeing them gain familiarity with words so they don’t need to sound them out. And that takes practice. 

I know that having lots of CVC word games and activities at the ready helps my students. It means they get tons of practice for every set of words or sounds we are working through. 

I have worksheets for independent work while I’m working with another group, and activity pages I can send home for additional practice. Students can cut & match, draw the words, draw and match, fill in missing sounds, find the word, match words, finish sentences and more. 

I give them cootie catchers, which they always love as a way to practice. I give them clay and playdough mats to shape the letters and say the sounds and words. And I work in games as often as I can. 

3 CVC Word Games

1. Bingo

It’s a classic, and it works so well as a CVC word game. You’ll need Bingo boards for each student. This makes a great small group or whole class game. Use word cards to draw words at random and announce them. Alternately have one student pull and say words. (If you play this game regularly, you can have this be a rotating job or make it part of a teacher helper class job.) Students mark words on their card when they hear them called. When students fill a row in any direction, they say Bingo. 

2. Snap

If you have flashcards or other word cards, students can use them to play snap. Students play in pairs. One shuffles the deck and deals out all the cards, face down, so that both players start with the same number of cards. Students flip the top card of their pile at the same time. If the cards match, the first person to say snap wins the cards. If the cards do not match. Both players flip the next card. Play continues for a set amount of time, at which point the person with the most cards wins, or until one person has all the cards.

3. Go Fish 

Like Snap, you can use flashcards or other word cards. You’ll want four sets of each word (or have students seek pairs instead of books of four). Have students shuffle the cards. One student deals out 7 cards to each player. The remaining cards are spread face down in the middle of the table or playing surface. Players take turns asking another player for a word that they need. If they get it, they add it to their hand until they have a pair (or book of four, as decided at the beginning of the game). If they do not get what they ask for, they are told to “Go Fish” and they select a card from the center pile. 

Word cards can be used for other games like Memory or sorting games (find all the words with an /m/ sound at the beginning or an i as the vowel, etc.)

Other games I like are:

• 4 in a Row. Students use a special game board to spin for a word (alternatively, you could have students draw a word card from a deck). They then write the word anywhere in the game grid. The first student to get 4 in a row wins. 

• Build a Word. Students have game cards with CVC words on them. They also have a set of letters. The first student picks a card, reads the word, and makes the word using the letters. When the word is complete, the student reads the word again. The student keeps the card if they read and make the word correctly. Once they read the card the second time, the next student goes. Play continues until all the cards are used up or until a pre-set time is reached. The student with the most cards at the end wins.

As far as I’m concerned, you can never have too many CVC word games and activities. Different activities will engage different kids. Many activities can be adapted for individuals, partners, groups, or whole class activities, but some shine for a certain size group. Some activities focus on reading, others on writing. Some give students lots of time to segment and blend as they work on reading words, while others call on them to read the words more quickly, with more fluency. 

Get more than 800 pages of CVC word games and activities to support you in teaching phonics! The CVC Words Worksheets and Games Ultimate Bundle includes: 

1. Ten different packs of CVC worksheets and activities;
2. Easy to follow information and instructions;
3. Games and activities to help your students develop the fundamental skills of blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation;
4. A range of individual, small group and whole-class activities; and
5. 800+ worksheets and games to assist in consolidating the learning of the phonics sounds.

Get the bundle (and save 30% off the price of buying all the packs separately) here >>

https://topnotchteaching.com/downloads/cvc-words-worksheets/